


Remembrance

by chiiyo86



Category: Lynes and Mathey Series - Amy Griswold & Melissa Scott
Genre: Attempted Sex, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23732161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: Ned learns something he didn't know about their time at school.
Relationships: Julian Lynes/Ned Mathey
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



> I really wanted the books to show Ned and Julian have a talk about Julian's sexual abuse at school (or just to expand on it) so your prompt was very appealing! Hope you enjoy my take on it in this treat. :)

Ned glanced right, saw that he had just enough time to cross Coptic Street before the incoming carriage was there, and broke into a run, keeping a hand on his hat to prevent it from flying off. He’d barely reached the other side when he heard the clatter of hooves and the racket of the carriage’s wheels hitting the cobblestones right behind him. Fat drops of rain crashed on the hand that was holding his hat and he hurried down the street in long strides.

Julian’s landlady, Mrs Dibgy, knew Ned well enough by now that it took him no time at all to go past her. He was probably the least objectionable of Julian’s visitors and he would dare say that Mrs Digby liked him more than she did her boarder. He even managed to wrench a rare smile out of her when he enquired after her health and her son’s. Ned took note of it so he could tease Julian later. 

“If you’d come a little earlier, you would have missed him,” Mrs Digby said to Ned. Her mouth thinned disapprovingly. “He’s just come back and he looked like he’d been in a brawl.”

Ned bit on his tongue not to ask if Julian looked hurt, and how badly. He would be able to see it soon enough for himself and he didn’t want his concern to draw the wrong kind of attention on their relationship. He bid Mrs Digby a pleasant day and made his way up the narrow staircase that would lead him to Julian’s rooms, trying to reason with the butterflies in his stomach that if Julian had been seriously hurt, Mrs Digby wouldn’t have acted so nonchalant about it. She may not be very fond of him, but she wasn’t completely heartless. Ned knocked on Julian’s door and got a muffled, “Come in” in return. Ned entered without announcing himself, because Julian already knew it was him—anyone else would have been accompanied by either Mrs Digby or young Digby. 

Julian was sprawled on his sofa, his coat and his hat thrown haphazardly on the floor. His clothes were wrinkled and a red mark marred his cheek, but those were the only signs of the ‘brawl’ that Mrs Digby had mentioned. Ned was now more worried about his mood than about hypothetical injuries. The moment he’d stepped into the parlor, he could feel it foul the air like a bad smell. He hung his frock coat and hat by the door and approached the sofa with as much caution as one would use to get close to a wounded tiger. He pushed Julian’s feet so he could sit at the end of the sofa, then pulled them back on his lap. Julian was still wearing his shoes and Ned could see that they were in dire need of a good polish. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked at last.

Julian’s dark curls fell in his eyes when he turned his head and Ned could only get a glimpse of them, enough to see that Julian was looking at him. “Nothing,” Julian said. “Just a rotten day.”

Ned couldn’t see the spirit lamp or an empty glass anywhere, so he wasn’t intoxicated. If, as Mrs Digby had said, he’d only just come back, he probably hadn’t had the time to fix himself a drink or an enchantment—instead of reassuring Ned, this made Julian’s apathy seem all the more worrying. 

“I’ve had a rotten day too,” he said, keeping his tone light. “I got the most finnicky client ever, who made me redo the same enchantment over and over again until I thought I was going to stab him with my wand.”

“Sounds annoying,” Julian said.

“Indeed it was. The things I would do for a paying client. Your turn, now. What was so bad about your day? An irritating client? A difficult case? A mystery you can’t solve?”

Julian’s next glance was sharp. “No need to be insulting, Mathey,” he said, nudging Ned with his foot. “There are no mysteries I can’t solve.”

“Fair enough,” Ned said amiably. “What is it, then?”

“It’s nothing, just—” Julian sighed and withdrew his feet from Ned’s lap, putting them down on the floor and dragging himself up in a sitting position. “The client I saw today—he was addressed to me by Lennox.”

“Ah,” Ned said. If the client had been sent to Julian by Lennox and Julian felt the need to point it out, then it meant that this client must have had certain proclivities shared by Ned and Julian both. 

“Not a problem in itself,” Julian said. “I expect less complications from clients sent to me by Lennox than the ones sent to me by Bolster.”

But their problems were also more likely to hit close to home, was what Julian didn’t need to say out loud. Ned abstained from commenting on it, knowing that Julian was more likely to confess whatever weighed on his mind if he wasn’t interrupted. 

“His name was Edmond Mills, not that it matters much. He was a thoroughly unremarkable man in most ways. He wanted advice on how to escape his father’s scrutiny, especially on matters of… well, you can guess what sort of matters he didn’t want his father to know about.”

“I can, yes.”

“The problem is that he’s still living at home with his father and the old man is the controlling kind. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Mr Mills ended up telling me quite a bit about his relationship with his father, some of it of a very private nature. Private and… unpleasant. I think he mostly needed to talk to someone. That’s part of a detective’s work too.”

It wasn’t the part that Julian was the most comfortable with, though. Ned’s stomach had roiled nauseatingly at the way Julian had said ‘private and unpleasant’, his mind conjuring a number of nightmare possibilities, but he wanted to let Julian tell the story in his own time. Which apparently meant not right now, because instead of elaborating Julian got up and paced the length of his parlor.

“Do you want a brandy?” he asked. “I think I need a brandy.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Ned watched as Julian poured them drinks, his body language still tense and nervous. He gave Ned his glass but didn’t sit down to drink his own, preferring instead to walk to the window and pull the curtains to give the street down below a glance, before walking to the other side of the room and fiddling with the towering pile of unopened mail on his desk. He continued to pace restlessly for a few more minutes, until Ned got tired of it and called him, stopping him in his tracks.

“Sit down, Lynes,” he said, patting the spot on the sofa right next to him. “You’re making my head spin.”

Julian downed the rest of his glass and left it on a pedestal table, before coming to sit down. He sighed, and, when Ned put his arm on top of the sofa’s back, leaned against Ned’s side. Ned looped his arm around Julian’s shoulders, feeling them go rigid at first and then relax by increments as Julian slowly gave in to the comfort. Ned let himself relax too, enjoying the closeness. They both had jobs that kept them busy and a need for discretion that limited the moments when they could act with each other as lovers. Ned had learned to make the most of the ones they could steal.

He felt Julian shift against his side and then kiss a spot below his ear. Ned let out a soft breath, letting him do whatever he wanted. The kisses multiplied, following the length of Ned’s jaw, the brush of Julian’s lips barely more than a caress. Julian’s hand came up to cup the other side of Ned’s face, making him turn his head so Julian could kiss him on the mouth. Ned kissed him back, and they spent the next few instants kissing each other thoroughly, wrapped in each other’s pleasant embrace. Julian broke it without warning, pulling away from Ned’s arms with such abruptness that Ned thought he’d decided he wasn’t in the mood after all. That assessment turned out to be dead wrong when Julian dropped down to his knees in front of Ned, hands going for the opening of Ned’s trousers.

“Wait,” Ned said, grabbing his wrists. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Julian asked. 

It was a line that could have been seductive if not for the edge in Julian’s voice and the mask of stubborn determination on his face. Nothing felt right about the situation. If there was one thing that Ned had learned from both their bedroom activities and the talks they’d had about them, it was that Julian emphatically didn’t like giving oral sex. As enticing as the sight of him on his knees was—and it was _very_ enticing, so that part of Ned’s anatomy was starting to stir despite his misgivings—Ned knew enough to question that sudden desire of Julian’s to do a sex act that he’d always seemed to hate.

“It’s not that I don’t find the offer terribly alluring,” Ned said carefully, “but I would only ever let you do this if I thought that you wanted it as much as I do, which doesn’t seem to be the case. What are you trying to prove, Julian? Is it related to your conversation with Mr Mills? Is he also the one who punched you in the face?”

Julian heaved a sigh and rocked back on his heels. “He didn’t like some of the things I said about his father.”

“Knowing you, I’m sure that your language was a model of diplomacy and restraint.”

Julian snorted. Resting his elbows on his knees, he looked in direction of the window, probably more to avoid meeting Ned’s eyes than because there was anything fascinating about the vis-à-vis. 

“I just don’t get how he could still defend the man who’s done those things to him. How could anyone let—” 

He cut himself off, his teeth clicking as he shut his mouth. Ned was getting uneasy with how personally he seemed to be taking what had happened with Edmond Mills. This was an upsetting subject, of course, and even without any of the details that Julian knew it made Ned sick to think about. But there was another layer to Julian’s reaction; not just his usual righteous anger and distress at the world being not as it ought to be, but also a glimpse of vulnerability, as though it touched to a private wound of his own. 

“Come on, don’t stay on the floor,” Ned said, holding out a hand to pull Julian on the sofa next to him. 

They sat next to each other in silence for a moment, while the wheels in Ned’s mind turned at full speed. Had anything similar to Edmond Mills’ experience happened to Julian? Someone in his family, maybe? But no, that didn’t quite fit—Ned remembered twelve-year-old Julian’s wounded indignation at the fact that authority figures in Sts Thomas couldn’t be trusted. It was unlikely that he’d have reacted like that if he’d known abuse at the hands of his family members. What, then? A cold wave of dread overcame Ned as the answer dawned on him.

“Did anything happen when we were at school?” he asked.

Julian’s head whipped around. His eyes were wide, and even if his next words had been denial Ned wouldn’t have believed it, because his question had so obviously touched a sore spot.

No denial came from Julian, though. Instead he grabbed Ned’s arm and asked urgently, “Did it happen to you too? Tell me they didn’t—”

They? Ned’s stomach sunk, a clearer picture forming in his mind. Who had all the power at Toms’? It wasn’t the masters, of course.

“The prefects,” Ned said hollowly. “God, what did they do to you?”

Julian slowly released his grip on Ned’s arm, brow furrowing as he probably realized he’d revealed more than he’d meant to. “They didn’t do the same to you?” he asked.

“They didn’t do anything to me. Well, I mean,” Ned amended, “nothing that you weren’t already aware of. What did they do to _you_?”

“Not much,” Julian said in a tone that contradicted his words. For a moment, Ned thought that this would be all he would get, but then Julian went on, “I was such a big mouth, always giving them cheek. They merely put that mouth to good use. These were Staniforth’s words.”

Horror and loathing rolled in Ned’s belly like sickness. He ground his teeth, clenched his fists, knowing he needed to consider carefully what he said and did next, for fear than he would hurt Julian more deeply than he already was. He wasn’t a violent man, contrary to what his stature might make others think, but if he’d had Staniforth or any of the other former prefects in front of him, he would have punched them. The comment Staniforth had made about Julian’s mouth affected him all the more because he’d thought similar things in the past—not with any intention of ever forcing himself on Julian, but still. 

“When did that happen?” he asked in what he thought was a pretty calm voice. “Unless it happened more than once…”

“No, just that one time,” Julian said, nervously wiping his hands on his trousers. He was looking at the window again, giving Ned a good view of the red swollen mark on his cheek from Edmond Mills punching him. “We were in our second year.”

Julian had been thirteen or fourteen, then. Ned sifted through his memories, trying to find if he could tell when it had happened, if there had been a day when Julian had acted particularly off after coming back from the prefects’ parlor. But the truth was, from their second year at Toms’ Julian had become prone to dark moods when he shut out everyone, including Ned, and Ned had learned it was better to leave him be until he was ready to talk again. There had been so many trying aspects about their lives at school, and Julian always felt everything so keenly, that Ned had never thought to question it. At the time, they’d just been trying to go through the days the best way they could. 

“I always wondered,” Julian said, unprompted, “if I was the only one they’d done this to. And if I was, why me? Because I kept rebelling? Or because they could tell that…” Julian’s mouth twisted before he said the next words. “…they could tell what I was. Because the worst part of it, Ned, is that it aroused me. I liked it. I got _hard_ from it.”

“That’s not the same as liking it, though,” Ned said. “Your body… _reacting_ to the act is not the same as truly enjoying it.”

“I was such a stupid boy,” Julian said, giving no sign that he’d registered Ned’s words. He wiped the corner of a wet eye with his thumb. “Thinking that I could meet them on equal footing, that they couldn’t tame me—maybe the others, but not _me_. You always said that I was so fearless and I thought I was. What arrogance. In the end, I was really nothing special. They held the power and I didn’t, and this was just the way things were.”

Ned’s throat clenched with emotion. He remembered Julian’s fire as a boy, which had so attracted him, and how it had given way to a dark cynicism with the years. He thought of how much Julian hated not having the upper hand during sex—because he didn’t trust his partners not to use it against him, Ned now understood, which made the few times he’d let Ned take the lead feel all the more precious. 

“I would never force you to do something you didn’t want,” Ned said.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Julian said snappishly, as though this didn’t bear saying. “I’m well aware of that. It’s not an entirely rational fear, you know.”

“And I don’t want you to force yourself to do things you don’t want to either. I never asked you why that particular act was so distasteful to you because it didn’t matter why you didn’t like it, just that you didn’t.”

“I don’t know what got into me,” Julian said. He swatted a hand at a curious tendril of the _Urtica mordax_ that had been aiming for his ear. “A sudden fit of madness. I guess it just irked me that even though I’m not a schoolboy anymore and they’re not prefects, they still have that hold on me. Much like Edmond Mills and his father.”

“I don’t know Edmond Mills,” Ned said, “but I doubt the two of you are very similar. I’ve never met anyone quite like you, actually.”

This earned him a half-smile from Julian. “Very kind of you to say. I’ve always aspired to being not quite like everyone else.”

“A worthy goal.”

Ned estimated that Julian had sufficiently calmed down that he wouldn’t object to being touched, so he crept a hand over the sofa to take Julian’s, lacing their fingers together. Julian glanced down at their joined hands but didn’t try to disengage. 

“I think I’ve thoroughly ruined the mood, haven’t I?” he said with a rueful smile. 

“Don’t worry about it, old man. As you said, this has been a particularly rotten day. What do you want to do now? Sleep? Have another drink? Go out for some dinner maybe?”

“I want—” Julian gave Ned’s hand a pull so Ned would sit closer to him, then rested his head on Ned’s shoulder. “Let’s just stay like this for a moment, all right?”

“Of course.” Ned kissed the top of Julian's head, his heart weighted with unbearable fondness. “Anything you want.”


End file.
